Our next stop after Sonora will be Fort Davis Texas. It's well south of I-10, but our subsequent stop will be just a few miles from the Rio Grande River and the Mexican border so we need to push south as well. The drive was easy even though we are picking up elevation. Apparently the increase is gradual since we're not noticing any steep climbs. We decide to stop at Fort Stockton along the way since it will be the last "big" town we will see in a few weeks. A major grocery run will hopefully last us for the majority of the trip south.
The drive turns out to be quite pretty. Initially we see faint outlines of mountains in the distance that get closer and closer as we push west. The last 30 miles, heading south to Davis Mountains State Park, snakes through the mountains and is a beautiful route. We plan on staying here for 5 nights. This is where having the Texas State Parks Pass pays off. Even as campers, we would have been charged an extra $6 per day per person. So the pass more or less pays for itself, plus the annual pass gets you 50% off one night's stay.
Most of the sites are pull thru along the campground roads which puts your door side away from the road. This means you have decent seclusion from others camped here, but also makes the casual conversations with other campers next to impossible since your rig is between your picnic table and the road. Most of the sites are full hookup 50 amp sites and only $25 per night. Not sure I can remember another state park that had full hookups. Plus they have cable. Generally I don't bother with cable and just use the antenna, but we aren't close to any towns with a broadcast channel, so it was a nice addition. It even came with HBO and Showtime.
 |
| Nice View from Campsite |
The campgrounds are nestled in the middle of the Davis Mountains. It's one of the nicer places we have camped in quite some time. We tend to go for this type of campground more than the "RV Resort". There are many miles of trails from easy nature trails to more challenging ones.
The first full day here, we decided to try the one trail labeled as challenging - the Indian Lodge Trail. We drove the short distance to the trailhead parking at Indian Lodge. The lodge has rooms you can rent with nice views of the mountains plus there is a restaurant there as well. The Indian Lodge Trail is about 1.4 miles one way, and climbs over 300 feet, taking you above a mile high. The views are stunning but the trail is rugged. I was glad to have chosen my sturdiest hiking boots. These boots are usually more than are needed for hikes we do, but in this case they fit the conditions perfectly. The other benefit of the climb is that I get cell signal up there whereas we are in a black hole at our camp site. A few geocaches along the way kept us going although one of them gave us a lot of trouble. A full 30 plus minutes were wasted looking for it and it wasn't until we gave up and we're heading away that Chris noticed the thing hanging in the tree practically next to the trail!
 |
| At Indian Lodge Trailhead |
 |
| View on Way Up |
 |
| Beautiful Panorama |
After we got to the end of the Indian Lodge Trail we could have reversed course and walk back to the car but we decided to pick up half of the Montezuma Quail Trail and head back down the mountain straight to the campground. In fact at one point we were able to pick out our rig from near the top of the mountain. With the hike over and being back at the rig, we had the slight problem of the Jeep being up at the parking lot. So while Chris made lunch, I hopped on the bike and went the short ride back to the car. The last section of the road was very steep and being at nearly a mile high, the air was a little thin so I was huffing and puffing by the time I got to the car (it has nothing to do with the fact I'm not in great shape!)
 |
| Indian Lodge at Davis Mountain State Park |
 |
| Chris Takes a Break |
 |
| We Are the White Dot in Upper Right |
For the afternoon we picked an easier but equally scenic outing - a drive up Skyline Drive. This road takes you up over 500 feet above the campground along a several mile drive. There are multiple turnouts with observation towers, picnic tables and benches to just sit and enjoy the views. We considered staying up here for sunset, but the clouds from a pending storm had already started to roll in.
 |
| View from Skyline Drive |
 |
| Distant Mountains |
 |
| Overlooking Town of Fort Davis |
 |
| Great Rock Formations |
This storm threw a wrench in our plans. Not just our plans here at this park, but with our overall goal of trying to avoid cold, snowy weather. Having cable allowed us to be prepared for the storm by watching the weather channel. We were going to have over a 24 hour period with temperatures below freezing. With it getting down to 25 for much of the time. We have been having nights and mornings where I would turn on the heat to take the chill out of the rig, but this would require furnace be on for an extended time.
With the diesel fired boiler going, the rig stayed nice and warm that night and when we awoke we discovered a light dusting of snow had fallen overnight. It wasn't enough to stick to the road although from the news reports, 50 miles north of us they were having a travel mess with several inches of snow. Not much by our standards but enough for Texas.
 |
| Slight Dusting of Snow |
Since we are at a fairly high elevation, we seemed to be socked in with a fair amount of fog. In fact we could barely see the nearby mountains we had just hiked the day before. Since it was going to be in the mid twenties all day, we decided to take it somewhat easy and head to Fort Davis - the Fort not the town. It is run by the National Park Service, so our annual pass got us in for free. There weren't many tourists here, but with the cold, fog and wind, who could blame them. In fact we questioned why we were there! There were some indoor displays as well as a few of the restored building open for touring, so we managed to stay warm enough. The fog actually made for a very eerie ghost town like feeling and some interesting photos.
 |
| Wagon at Fort Davis |
 |
| Row of Housing Fogged In |
 |
| Large Home at Fort Davis |
After we were done, we headed to Fort Davis - the town, and stopped at the library. We went in to discover they had good wifi speeds. With any luck we should be able to come back later to try to upload a blog post or two and research the rest of our trip to Quartzsite.
No comments:
Post a Comment